


ricocheting regrets

by GingerBeer42



Series: snapshots taken (before the world burns) [2]
Category: Purple Hyacinth (Webcomic)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Internal Monologue, Missing Scene, Overuse Of Parentheses, Romance, Run-On Sentences, Short, as always i can't write much else, because i can't write shipping :'), bruh the tags're gonna be longer than the actual thing if i keep this up, hm 800 this time, i mean i hint at it, rather blatantly, run-on sentences galore, yaaaaaaaaay
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 23:27:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 886
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25124653
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GingerBeer42/pseuds/GingerBeer42
Summary: It strikes her mind that going out to the training area and shooting holes in a rectangle of cardboard every time her burgeoning regrets swallow up her thoughts isn't a particularly healthy coping mechanism, but it’s all she’s got.
Relationships: William Hawkes/Kym Ladell
Series: snapshots taken (before the world burns) [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1803001
Comments: 4
Kudos: 33





	ricocheting regrets

**Author's Note:**

> Betaed by the incredibly awesome [Andromicat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromicat/)! <3 Tons of appreciation for making this dumpster fire actually not be completely shit! (Also for dealing with my demotivation and random-ass complaints on Discord LOL) I’M SORRY FOR DUMPING THIS ON YOU AGAIN
> 
> Before we begin… No, I don’t really know how guns work, and I have no idea why I chose to center this around them. I’m probably on some watchlists for my search history now… Oops. :’>
> 
> ...I don’t even know how this happened… I was just trying to get some angst and this entire thing exploded. It’s probably OOC and Season 2’ll probably completely joss it, but oh well.
> 
> Working title “NO SOMEONE STOP ME OR I’M GONNA DIE”.

_ BAM _ . The polished metal of the pistol is smooth under her hands as her finger tightens on the trigger. Kym involuntarily blinks at the eardrum-shattering sound of the gun firing, at the explosive recoil forcing her hands backwards, and when she looks back up a dark wound is blazened into the target twenty feet in front. Wisps of gray smoke curl out of the barrel of her handgun, drifting with ironic serenity towards the twilight heavens. 

She’s the only one there, alone in the training area under a swiftly darkening sky. Everyone with any semblance of a normal schedule has gone home already, but Kym can’t seem to bring herself to go. 

And it’s not the piles of paperwork cluttering her desk that are keeping her here.

Brushing her hair out of her eyes again, she pulls down the hammer of the pistol again, almost-maybe-smiling at the satisfying  _ KA-CLUNK _ of the mechanism. She wonders if the police department’s guns were deliberately made to cock dramatically, to give that extra edge in an interrogation. Whether or not that’s true, the feel and sound of the hammer clicking into place is satisfying (maybe even more so than actually firing). 

She grips the gun steady in two hands and raises it to shoulder height, eyes narrowed. 

She’s done this so many times (so many days at work where her concentration slips, wanders away to a day years past that she wouldn’t even remember if she had any choice in the matter — but alas, despite countless days of wishing and wondering and heartbreak, it’s still forever imprinted in her memory), her arms and hands remember the motions; she barely needs to glance through the sight before pulling down hard on the trigger again. 

_ BAM _ . Perfect.

The report of the bullet exiting the barrel jolts her wandering thoughts back to reality, sending a surge of adrenaline through her. She reloads the gun, fires again, again, again in quick succession, each shot slicing through the flimsy cardboard of the target with perfectly practiced precision. 

_ BAM _ . 

Discarded shells tumbling down to the ground with a  _ clack _ , smoke curling up into the night.

Regrets, regrets, regrets, ricocheting through her, billowing around her like the disturbed dust of the training area’s ground. She reaches out with unsteady hands in a vain hope of catching them, but they slip through her outstretched fingers, vanishing into the void like so much smoke.

The mission she’s been given, that she  _ must _ complete or else it all ends.

The deep darkness that by day she keeps hidden under grins and jokes and laughter at the slightest of causes, under her ever-present cheerfulness that she feels nothing in the universe could possibly smother. 

The confusing knot of emotions she feels bubbling up in her like magma when she looks at  _ him _ , because of course she had to go and  _ fall in love _ , and of  _ course _ it had to be  _ him _ .  _ Him _ and his deep blue eyes and his short-cropped hair and his  _ smile _ . 

Exasperated sighs, irritated glares, bitingly sarcastic arguments at all hours of the day… somehow it had all built into this. 

She can’t draw her eyes away from his now, can’t stop herself from gazing into their ultramarine depths (and isn’t that cliché?). If she squints, just for a second, she thinks she can see her own emotions reflected in them, but…

But then he blinks, or she does, and the spell is broken. 

And it’s just them. Just two coworkers who can’t stand each other. 

Just her imagination.

Her finger tightens on the trigger again, and she empties the gun, pouring metal into the abused surface of the target, until her ears are ringing and her mind is blessedly empty, cleared by the imagined thrill of a chase. 

Her heartbeat pulses in her ears, and for a second she’s sprinting through the streets of Ardhalis, the dark shadow of her quarry darting away from her, almost-but-not-quite slipping away like water off a duck’s feathers, but  _ she’s faster _ , the insane, primeval  _ thrill  _ of adrenaline coursing through her as she draws closer and closer — if she reaches out now, she can — 

And then it all comes flooding back as the smoke of her gun disperses in the chilly evening breeze, the welcome reprieve only lasting a few delicate, beautiful moments before her thoughts are again whirling around and around in incessant, ever-faster circles through the spaces of her mind, and she’s left standing in an empty enclosure under the first of the stars winking to life above her head, breath racing, heart pounding. 

Paradoxically, she’s calmer now than she was before, the worst of her anxiety dissipated in the rush of target practice. The regrets that so totally consumed her are quieter now, slinking to the dingy recesses of her mind to sulk and wait to emerge again.

It’s not a particularly healthy coping mechanism, but it’s all she’s got. She manages to stay afloat. By the time she enters the main building to gather her things, she’s composed herself enough to let her happiness shine through again, and she waves cheerily at Kieran the archivist as she passes him.

She bottles up her darkness like so much magma under the surface of a slumbering volcano, and someday it’ll find its way out. But today is not that day.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, KyWi. Yes. I’m sorry for the clichés, I’ve literally zero experience in writing anything even remotely related to romance. I can, however, aggressively hang lampshades on this fact.
> 
> As I said in the other AN, I really don’t know anything about guns and my research is probably spotty. If you spot a mistake that greatly interferes with this, please let me know. Thanks. Also, I try to pride myself on my grammar. If you notice something off (because the last run of edits for this was done at midnight oop), let me know and I’ll try to fix it up :’)
> 
> Yeah, I don’t know where the darkness came from. I guess my subconscious just sees Kym as a dangerous Stepford Smiler or something… And the rest of this is just vague vagueries of vagueness because we don’t really know much about her yet :V (or we do and I’m just dumb lmao… haven’t read / done any character analyses on these guys yet [SO WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO WRITE THEM, HMMM GINGER? >:|||])
> 
> Anyway! Thanks for reading another installment of my weird attempts to be introspective, set around random activities characters do often!!! *throws more shoehorned metaphors at you* I intended to have some more fics in this series but I find I cannot right now I’m sorry. It’s not supposed to be a cohesive narrative anyway, just random introspective drabbles. 
> 
> So… liked it? Hated it? Want Kym to shoot me in the head from an unreasonable distance because she’s awesome and badass??? (I definitely don’t also want that :>) Please DO lobby deserved insults at me in the comments!
> 
> LINKS LINKS LINKS!  
> [Purple Hyacinth on Line WEBTOON](https://www.webtoons.com/en/mystery/purple-hyacinth/list?title_no=1621)  
> [Our lawless hellhole of an official Discord server](https://discord.gg/MRyCG3) (really an awesome community to be a part of — we’re chaotic, not toxic :>)  
> And again my beautiful, brilliant, long-suffering beta and amazing friend [Andromicat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Andromicat/) (go read their fics!!). They basically co-wrote this thing, along with every other fic where I list them as a beta :')


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